Capping devices



Feb. 13, 1962 Filed Aug. 11, 1960 A. PODESTA ET AL CAPPING DEVICES 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 INVENTORS ARMANDO PODESTA CARLO VIGNATI ATTORNEY ited States Patent 3,020,690 Patented Feb. 13, 1 962 3,020,690 CAPPING DEVICES Armando Podesta and Carlo Vignati, both of 52 Via Eustachi, Milan, Italy Filed Aug. 11, 1960, Ser. No. 49,074 Claims priority, application Italy Aug. 18, 1959 5 Claims. (Cl. 53-353) This invention relates to an improved device for securing caps to bottles or the like and aims to provide means for clamping to container mouths caps provided with a skirt having at its free end a projecting part which may be constricted radially all around a bottle neck or a part underlying a container mouth.

The main object of the invention is to provide a device of the above kind which permits of adjusting the amount of constriction to the irregularities of the said part underlying the container mouth and which, for the sake of simplicity, will be assumed to be a bottleneck, of the kind rovided with an annular bead serving as abutment member for the constricted cap skirt end. Consequently it will be understood that in the following specification the term neck shall comprise any outside lateral part under a container mouth.

Another object of the invention is to provide a clamping jaw device comprising a crown of fingers and which is particularly adapted for securing to container mouth metallic caps provided with a curled skirt end, whereby the curl, when the cap is not secured to the container, projects outside of the substantially cylindrical top skirt part.

Still another object of the invention is to provide a sectional clamping jaw device which avoids constriction of the flaring or otherwise projecting cap part, before said part is driven in its cap-anchoring position.

Other objects and advantages will be apparent from the following specification.

Another object of the invention is to provide a capping device which is particularly adapted for securing caps having a curled skirt end and particularly caps comprising an inner cap made of plastic material and acting as tight-closure cap and an outer cap provided with a curled skirt edge.

According to the invention, the capping device comprises substantially a head adapted to be reciprocated with respect to the container to be capped, and particularly a bottle, said head enclosing a usual cap presser and clamping jaw made of a plurality of clamping fingers arranged so as to form a substantially annular clamping jaw, by which the said fingers may slightly yield in radial direction, the whole being so arranged that, by causing the head to be shifted axially in the direction of the container mouth to be capped, upon which a cap has been loosely seated, the said cap is first driven by a cap presser so as to cap the container end by its mouth and thereafter means enter into action which, by means of said crown of fingers, radially constriot the end of the skirt of said cap, thereby due to the independent yielding of said fingers, the container neck in correspondence of the constricted cap part is firmly clamped thereby, without however being subjected to an excessive side pressure due to the crown of fingers adapting themselves to the irregularities of the container neck.

The invention as well as the means for performing same will be apparent from the following specification and drawing appended thereto.

In the drawings:

FIGURE 1 shows one-half in vertical section and onehalf in elevation a bottle-capping head constricted according to the invention, and

FIGURES 2 and 3, show also part in section and part in elevation a simplified capping head in two working positions during the securing of a cap to a bottle.

The capping head shown in FIGURE 1 comprises a substantially cylindrical tubular shell 8 which is divided into two parts 108 and 208 by transverse abutment members or flanges 6 provided with a central bore 106, whereby the top part 108 may be connected to a reciprocating press or the like, of conventional construction, and serves for reciprocating the whole head, together with the capping means contained therein, and which will be described hereinafter, while the lower part 208 forms together with said transversal flange 6 a bell-shaped member provided with a cylindrical bore 16 and a counter-bore 116 at its bottom end, an annular shoulder 216 beingformed at the end of said counter-bore 116.

In the counter-bore 116 a drag and constriction sleeve 15 is mounted which is made of spring steel and cornprises a cylindrical top part 215, an intermediate frust0- conical part 315 and a lower substantially cylindrical part 415 ending by the bottom edge of the shell part 208 where it is retained by a plate 17 having a large central aperture permitting of inserting therethrough the neck of a container with its cap loosely seated on its mouth, and for extracting the capped container mouth, said plate 17 being fastened to the edge of the shell part 208 as by screws.

The total height of the said constriction sleeve is slightly less than the length of the counterbore and it ends at its top with an outwardly extending flange which extends so as to bear against the whole shoulder 216 and thus the bore of the cylindrical part 215 is substantially equal to the bore 16, while the lower cylindrical part 415 has a reduced thickness permitting slight elastic deformations within the counter-bore 116, in which it is mounted with a slight play.

Within the above-described sleeve 1'5 an annular capclamping jaw 12 is mounted which is formed by a connecting ring 112 at its top from which depend a crown of clamping fingers 212 which comprise at their inner edge a vertical top part 312, an intermediate outwardly inclined section 412 and a vertical bottom section 512, while the outer edge has a vertical bottom section 612 having a length that is substantially equal to the vertical part 415 of sleeve 15.

The parts 312 of the crown of fingers form together a substantially cylindrical bore whose diameter is substantially equal to that of the caps when secured to the bottle, i.e., after constriction of the end of their skirt, the parts 512form together a shallow cylindrical housing for the cap in non-constricted condition and the inclined parts 412. are so designed as to first bear against the cap bottom edge and then to secure by constriction the cap to the bottle mouth or other container, as will be seen hereinafter. 7

Within the cylindrical bore of the ring 112 a cylindrical cap presser 9 is slidablymounted, whose diameter is substantially equal to that of the top of the cap skirt. The cap presser 9 is provided with a guide stem 10 slid,- ably mounted through the bore 106 of the flange 6 and provided with an abutment member 14. A compressed spring 19 inserted between a washer or annular shoulder 11 and the flange 6 urges said cap presser 9 downwardly, in the measure as permitted by the abutment member 14.

Between a top shoulder of the jaw ring 112 and the said flange 6 a very strong compression spring 20 may be fitted for the purposes which will be seen hereinafter.

Anyway, as shown in FIGURES 2 and 3, the spring 20 may be omitted although its presence may be useful in some cases.

The operation of the above-described device will be now described with reference to the simplified form shown in FIGURES 2 and 3, in which the container to becapped is a bottle 1 provided with an annular bead 2 at the top of its neck, just under its mouth which is to be capped by means of a double cap 3-4. As shown in FIG. 2, this cap is of the kind comprising an inner cap 3 made of piastic material such as polyethylene, serving as lining and replacing the usual gasket or cork disk, and an outer metallic cap 4 provided with a substantially cylindrical skirt ending with an inwardly rolled curl 7 projecting outside and inside the periphery of said skirt so as to form outwardly an inclined step and inwardly a slight bulging, partially encased in a groove formed in the end bead of the skirt of the cap 3. Caps of this description or equivalent caps are known per se and are not claimed as forming part of the invention.

The said cap 3-4 is first loosely seated upon the bottle mouth, (see FIG. 1) which is then held under the just described capping device so that by acting against the cap bottom, the cap presser 9 urges the said cap 3-4 against the bottle mouth.

Then the head 8 is driven axially with sufiicient pressure in the direction of the bottle neck (which is assumed to be held firmly) and under the action of this axial pressure, the cap presser 9 bears against the bottom of the cap 4 and drives the caps 3-4 so as to cause the bead 5 of the inner cap to snap under the bead 2 of the bottle mouth. Then the edge of the bottom of the cap 4 is engaged by the inclined sections 412 of the crown of fingers 212 and by continuing the downward pressure upon the head 8, the top end of the inclined finger sections 412 pass beyond the edge of the bottom of the cap 4 and, sliding along the skirt of said cap, come in correspondence of the curl 7 and squeeze same inwardly as clearly shown in FIGURE 3. In this position the cap is firmly secured to the bottle which is thus tightly capped and the whole head may be withdrawn by pulling same in opposite direction, until the capped bottle neck is completely outside the head 8 and may be replaced by another bottle to be capped.

Due to the slight elasticity of the fingers 212 and to the elastic deformability of the surrounding sleeve 15, during the described capping operation the fingers are allowed to slightly yield elastically, independently of each other, so as to adapt the caps to the slight irregularities of the bottle neck just under the mouth.

In order to avoid that the inclined fingers sections 412 slide beyond the bottom edge of the cap 4 before the cap bead 5 has passed beyond the bottle neck bead 2, and thus squeeze the curl 7 when the cap is not yet anchored to the bottle neck, the strong spring 20, FIGURE 1, is provided which yields until the cap is not firmly seated upon the bottle mouth, and only then permits the sliding of the crown of fingers upon the cap skirt, as described, and the consequent radial squeezing of the curl 7 (PEG. 3

From the foregoing is apparent that the just described device may undergo many constructional changes without departing from the spirit of the invention. Thus the crown of fingers forming the clamping jaw may be obtained by retaining independent stave-like fingers by means of elastic hoop-like rings, which may be formed for example by helical springs connected at their ends. Furthermore a clamping jaw thus composed may be driven axially by acting on the fingers tops by means of the shoulder provided by the counter-bore of the head 8. Furthermore the radial constriction of the fingers may be effected for example by causing a ring or sleeve to slide along inclined outer sections of said fingers.

Thus the invention is not limited by the constructional features just described and shown, but only by the appended claims.

We claim:

1. A capping head for tightly securing a closure cap to a container having a beaded neck, comprising a tubular shell provided with an abutment member in its bore, a cap presser having a head slidably mounted in one end of said bore, a first spring means urging said head away from said abutment member, an annular clamping jaw formed as a crown of independently yielding fingers encircling said cap presser, second spring means urging said annular clamping jaw away from said abutment member, a counter bore in said shell at the cap presser end of said bore providing at its inner end an annular shoulder, a sleeve-like constricting member elastically and radially deformable mounted with clearance coaxially in said counter bore, the inner end of said constricting member abutting against said annular shoulder, and coacting inclined planes on said elastically deformable constricting member and said crown of fingers, whereby upon axially shifting said tubular shell in the direction of a container upon the neck of which a cap has been pressed by said cap presser and encircled by said crown of fingers, said constricting member will elastically constriet said independent fingers against the skirt of the cap but will yield in any radial direction, thus permitting said constricted fingers to follow irregularities of the container neck below its bead.

2. A capping head according to claim 1, wherein is additionally provided an end abutment on the outer end of said counter bore and extending radially inwardly of the counterbore, said second spring means engaging the said annular clamping jaw to urge it against said end abutment and being much stronger than the said first spring acting upon the cap presser whereby said cap presser will first press a cap to fully seat the cap over the beaded neck of the container before said clamping jaw will be moved to constrict the cap skirt radially and thus avoid premature clamping of the caps.

3. A capping head according to claim 1, in which the said constricting member is a sleeve comprising a frust0- conical section and a depending substantially cylindrical section, both said sections being made of relatively thin elastically deformable material, such as spring wheel.

4. A capping head according to claim 1 in which said plurality of independently yielding fingers of the annular clamping jaw are slightly spaced when they are not constricted.

5. A capping head for tightly securing a closure cap to a container having a beaded neck, comprising a tubular shell provided with an abutment member in its bore, a cap presser having a head slidably mounted in one end of said bore, an annular clamping jaw formed as a crown of independently yielding fingers encircling said cap presser, a spring means urging said head of the cap presser and said annular clamping jaw away from said abutment member, a counter bore in said shell at the cap presser end of said bore providing at its inner end an annular shoulder, a sleeve-like constricting member elasti cally and radially deformable mounted with clearance coaxially in said counter bore, the inner end of said constricting member abutting against said annular shoulder, and enacting inclined planes on said elastically deformable constricting member and said crown of fingers, whereby upon axially shifting said tubular shell in the direction of a container upon the neck of which a cap has been pressed by said cap presser and encircled by said crown of fingers, said constricting member will elastically constriet said independent fingers against the skirt of the cap but will yield in any radial direction, thus permitting said constricted fingers to follow irregularities of the container neck below its bead.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 949,678 Hermann Feb. 15, 1910 

